Update

The third episode of season four aired Thursday. Hattiesburg resident Chris Wilkes and his brother, Brody, became the first team to unite and are now one of four teams remaining in the competition.

Brody, who was the team's designated hiker, reached the camp Chris set up after eight days of hiking across nearly 10 miles of rugged terrain on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

The last team left standing wins $500,000.

"Alone" airs at 9 p.m. Thursday on HISTORY (Comcast channel 42 in the Hattiesburg area).

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Brody Wilkes spent more than a week on HISTORY's "Alone" hiking the almost 10 miles on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, before reaching his brother, Chris, a Hattiesburg resident, on the third episode of Season 4.
Jason Munz/Hattiesburg American

Original story

Hattiesburg resident Chris Wilkes and his brother, Brody, are among the five teams remaining on HISTORY’s survival-themed series, “Alone.”

The object of the show is to simply survive in the brutal wilderness longer than the rest of the competitors. Last season’s winner, Zachary Fowler, spent 87 days in the Patagonia region of South America.

The Wilkes brothers weren't featured on the season four premiere that aired June 15 and garnered the largest viewership (at 1.715 million) of any “Alone” season premiere. The second episode, which saw the second of seven teams drop out of the competition, aired last week and ended on day five.

Chris and Brody, who are contractually bound from revealing anything about what’s in store for the rest of the season, encountered immediate hardship upon being dropped on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, almost 10 miles apart.

“The helicopter dropped me off in a marsh in the mountains,” said Brody, a Kentwood, Louisiana, resident who opted to serve as the team’s hiker. “It was not solid land. This hole was full of water, and my feet never touched the bottom of it. This event set the stage for my hike because now, 20 minutes after being dropped off, I was soaking wet from the chest down.”

The cast members, who were among more than 7,500 applicants for season four, knew early this season would differ from the previous three because it was advertised as a tandem challenge. But the twist was not revealed until late in the casting process, according to Chris.

“We did suspect pretty early in the process that there was going to be some type of catch,” he said. “One thing that might have tipped us off was in some of the paperwork, (it said), ‘five items per person,’ as opposed to 10 items per team.”

Even upon learning of the hiking requirement, the cast was never made aware of the magnitude of it.

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Chris Wilkes sat down with the Hattiesburg American this week to talk about his early, untelevised experiences on HISTORY's "Alone."
Jason Munz/Hattiesburg American

“We actually found out while watching the show of how far we really were from each other,” Brody said.

Prior to the premiere, both brothers commented on how the inclement weather and harsh climate made everything more difficult. After five days, Chris and Brody have each experienced how crippling Vancouver Island’s rugged terrain can be.

On episode two, Brody is shown taking a minor spill and tweaking his knee.

“There were numerous falls (during the hike),” he said. “(But on this one), I came upon a waterfall that was a steep dropoff. The hillside was covered in salal (a thick, leathery-leaved shrub). It was so thick, while walking through it, I couldn’t see my feet. I came upon a log and was expecting to step over it and gain footing. My foot didn’t touch the ground once I started over the log and the weight of my pack ended up carrying me over to the other side. My left foot was bent around the log and my knee bent with it.

“It took a couple of days before the pain of that injury finally subsided.”

For Chris, who spent the first two episodes setting up camp near a beach, the biggest challenge was finding a suitable area to do just that.

“At first glance, (my location was) paradise,” he said. “Up close, not so much. Once I landed on the beach, I began to push into the woods to find where my initial camp location would be. What I quickly discovered is that I could barely get off the beach. The woods were solid salal, 6 to 8 feet high. I finally found an overturned tree with a big root ball. Where that root ball turned over, it left a flat spot.

"That was where I ended up camping."

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Chris Wilkes, a Hattiesburg resident, will be competing on the fourth season of "Alone" on HISTORY. The season premiere is set for 9 p.m. Thursday.
Jason Munz/Hattiesburg American

The Wilkes will continue to watch each episode as it airs with great interest in how the experience plays out for the rest of the cast members.

“We are not aware of how any other teams have done this season,” Brody said. “We are learning what happens at the same time everyone else is.”

Brody added he was surprised to see the non-hikers — Josh Richardson and Logan Ribar — make the call to tap out. Richardson suffered an ankle injury due to a fall and called for help, while Ribar cited a brush with a bear on day one as his primary motivation for eliminating his team.

“I felt that all of the teams were very strong and really didn’t expect any of the teams to leave early,” he said. “So it was a surprise to find out that any had already left at that point.”

How to watch

"Alone" airs at 9 p.m. Thursday on HISTORY (Comcast channel 42 in the Hattiesburg area).